Three years later, “Malibu” is still a banger. Miley Cyrus celebrated the anniversary of Liam Hemsworth’s “Malibu”—the ballad she wrote for her ex-husband in 2017—on Tuesday, May 12, with an emotional post on her Instagram. The “Wrecking Ball” singer celebrated the song’s three-year anniversary with a video that included clips of the song’s music video, fan reactions to the track and sound bites from radio stations that commended her on the release.
“3 YEAR ANNIVERSARY OF MALIBU 🎈❤️🎈❤️🎈❤️🎈❤️🎈❤️🎈,” she wrote in the caption.
In a 2017 interview with Billboard, Miley confirmed that “Malibu” is about her relationship with Liam and their life in Malibu, California. “They’re going to talk about me if I come out of a restaurant with Liam,” she said at the time. “So why not put the power back in my relationship and say, ‘This is how I feel’?”
In the interview, Miley explained that she wrote the lyrics to the track in an Uber on the way to The Voice. “I was trying not to sing out loud because someone else was in the car,” she said of the process.
Miley and Liam announced their separation after eight months of marriage in August 2019. They finalized their divorce in January 2020. The two dated on and off from almost 10 years after they met on the set of The Last Song, a romantic drama based on Nicholas Sparks’ novel of the same title, in 2010.
Since their breakup, though, Miley and Liam have moved on with different people. As of May, Miley is in a relationship with Australian singer Cody Simpson, while Liam is dating Australian model Gabriella Brooks. Miley has also been busy hosting her Instagram Live show, Bright Minded, where she invites celebrities such as Demi Lovato and Selena Gomez to talks about mental health on her Instagram.
“When my community and peers and local heroes and activists started reaching out to me, I knew I had something special that was actually doing what it was created to do. It was connecting people,” she told the Wall Street Journal about the show in May. “[The show has] evolved so deeply from trying to provide some escapism to actually the opposite: to not escaping, to diving into deeper involvement with our community.”